Bold Busing Plan Leads to Deep Divides in Wausau

A bold school-busing plan intended to unite this mostly white and
Southeast-Asian community appears instead to be tearing it apart.

Five school board members face recall this week because they
supported the plan, which this fall has provided for six elementary
schools to swap about half their students in an effort to more evenly
distribute the district's enrollment of low-income and Southeast-Asian
children.

The superintendent who engineered the plan has lost her job, and
charges of racism and elitism were being hurled last week as this city
of 36,000 wrestles with problems most residents could not have imagined
a decade ago.

"The scars of this debate may be felt around this community for some
period of time,'' said Berland A. Meyer, the Wausau school district's
assistant superintendent for instructional services.

Hardships on Children Seen

More than 10,000 residents signed petitions calling for recall
elections, even though the next regular district elections will be held
in just four months.

Critics say the busing plan imposes hardships on children and their
parents and could reduce parental involvement in schools.

"We believe we can find diversity within the neighborhood school
system,'' said Debra Hadley, a member of the recall slate.

Defenders of the plan, meanwhile, have been organizing in support of
the board members and warning that its reversal could lead to a
civil-rights suit. Several Southeast-Asian residents, many of whom
could not vote for lack of citizenship, were busy last week stuffing
envelopes and passing out literature to help their cause.

"This district had changed dramatically, and it was time to take
some action to provide equality of educational opportunity,'' said
Richard F. Allen, the school board president.

Southeast-Asian refugees began moving into this overwhelmingly white
area in north-central Wisconsin about 15 years ago, largely through
resettlement programs run by Catholic and Lutheran charities. Most were
Hmong, an ethnic groupthat was targeted by the Communist government of
Vietnam because many of its members had collaborated with the U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency during the Vietnam War.

By the end of last school year, Southeast-Asians accounted for about
a tenth of the Wausau district's residents, about 16 percent of its
students, and nearly one in four of its entering kindergartners.

Because most of the new immigrants were concentrated in certain
neighborhoods, the proportion of minorities in district schools ranged
from less than 3 percent to more than 50 percent. Some schools
experienced a loss of white students and were predicted to have almost
entirely Hmong enrollments within five years.

Of the white children who remained in such schools, most were from
low-income families drawn to the same central-city neighborhoods by the
search for affordable housing.

Many of those students also appeared to suffer as a result of being
placed in overwhelmingly Southeast-Asian classrooms, district officials
said.

"The teacher had to slow down and spend a lot more time explaining
very simple concepts, and that definitely slowed down the progress of
the Anglo children,'' observed Ya M. Yang, who last spring became the
first Hmong elected to the Wausau school board.

A Moral Imperative?

The school board last year decided it needed to disperse the
district's low-income and Southeast-Asian populations to provide relief
to such schools, boost student achievement, and unite a community that
appeared to be becoming racially polarized.

"We weren't under a court order, but, morally and ethically, when
you have identified the sources of racial disparities and differences,
and how they are affecting education, you have an obligation to do
something,'' Penelope J. Kleinhans, who was then the district's
superintendent, said last week.

In seeking to integrate low-income and Southeast-Asian children with
the broader student population, Wausau was venturing into fairly new
territory.

The only district to have done anything similar was nearby La
Crosse, Wis. Confronted with similar concentrations of low-income and
Southeast-Asian children, it last year redrew its school-attendance
boundaries to more evenly distribute students who are eligible under
federal guidelines for free school meals.

Or Moving Too Fast?

When the Wausau board began to discuss "partnering'' schools, the
idea met spirited opposition from parents who claimed the board was
moving too quickly and should keep neighborhoodschools intact.

Some defenders of the plan accused its foes of being motivated by
racism.

"Which parents are doing more for the future of Wausau--the ones who
want Wausau's kids to live together, or the ones who teach their
children racial taunts while sending them to their 'neighborhood
schools'?'' Dr. Jeffrey H. Lamont, a pediatrician, asked in a
commentary in the Wausau Daily Herald.

Advocates of neighborhood schools called such charges unfair.

Of four incumbents who were up for re-election last April, three
were voted out of office.

Nevertheless, the board settled on the partnering plan, arguing that
it was the most cost-effective and educationally sound option. In June,
it voted 6 to 3 to pair six elementary schools, turning three into K-2
centers and three into schools for the 3rd through 5th grades.

Among those voting for the plan was Mr. Yang, who last spring had
been elected with the backing of neighborhood-school advocates.
Although Mr. Yang said his family has been threatened as a result of
his decision, he is protected by state law from being recalled during
his first year in office.

600 Students Affected

Since the plan went into effect this fall, about 600 children have
been bused up to 2.2 miles away from their neighborhood schools.

The plan has kept any school from having a minority enrollment of
more than 32 percent, but has been partially blamed for a sharp drop in
new enrollment and the loss of students to private schools.

Teachers have been generally supportive of the restructuring,
especially in the schools affected. The Wausau Education Association
formally came out in favor the plan last month after 80 percent of
members surveyed voiced approval.

Most Hmong parents support the plan as a way to help their children
assimilate, according to Yi Vang, the executive director of the Wausau
Area Hmong Mutual Association. But only about 130 of them are eligible
to vote.

The reaction from much of the public, however, has been strongly
negative. According to a survey, 29 percent of residents agreed with
the plan, while 58 percent disagreed.

Opponents contend that thepartner-schools plan has diluted the
district's problems without addressing them. Ms. Hadley argued that the
district could have integrated through other means, such as controlled
choice or magnet schools, and would better address the needs of
Southeast-Asians by hiring bilingual teachers.

Even some of those who favored the new plan said the current board
mishandled its implementation. The Daily Herald last week declined to
endorse Mr. Allen, the board's president, or Fred Prehn, its vice
president, for that reason.

"In the same way you can't disenfranchise the 16 percent
Southeast-Asian population, you can't disenfranchise the 58 percent of
parents who favor neighborhood schools,'' said Sean Alwin, one of two
independent candidates in the race.

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